she showed us to what remained of a road that would take us right to the place, not three miles from where we stood. The road was overgrown, but as you walked along you could see the ruts. The brush grew lower In them, because the earth was still packed so hard. We walked past that graveyard twice. The two or three headstones in it had fallen over and it was all grown up with weeds and grass. The third time, my father no- ticed a fence post, so we walked over to it, and we could see a handfi.ù of graves, a row of maybe seven or eight and below it a half row, swamped with that dead brown grass I remember that the in- completeness of it seemed sad to me. In the second row we found a marker someone had made by stripping a patch of bark off a log and then driving nails partway in and bending them down flat so they made the letters REV AMES. The R looked like the A and the S was a backward Z, but there was no mis- taking it. It was evening by then, so we walked back to the lady's farm and washed at her cistern and drank from her well and slept in her hayloft. She brought us a supper of cornmeal mush. I loved that woman like a second mother. I loved her to the point of tears. We were up before day- light to milk and cut kindling and draw her a bucket of water, and she met us at the door with a breakfast of fried mush " ,." .. " ., -- ::.-::>;': _... x :Ii: )v:-"'. . ; .. ..",' ..,"::oOo .,:"";.:.;.;.::-:-,:.;.>;..;' .. "'M':::"-'-;:"V'-:=-=::: :' :':"':;:'" :"':'.':Û.';" .. -. ". with blackberry preserves melted over it and a spoonful of top milk on it, and we ate standing there at the stoop in the chill and the dark and it was perfectly wonderful. Then we went back to the graveyard, which was just a patch of ground with a half-fallen fence around it and a gate on a chain weighted with a cowbell. My fa- ther and I fixed up the fence as well as we could. He broke up the ground on the grave a little with his jackknife. But then he decided we should go back to the farmhouse again to borrow a couple of hoes and make a better job of it. He said, "We might as well look after these other folks, while we're here." This time the lady had a dinner of navy beans wait- ing for us. I don't remember her name, which seems a pi She had an index finger that was off at the first knuckle. My father said she spoke as if her people might be from Maine, but he didn't ask her. She cried when we said goodbye to her, and wiped her face with her apron. My father asked if there was a letter or a message she would like us to carry back with us, and she said no. He asked if she would like to come along, and she thanked us and shook her head and said, "There's the cow." She said, "We'll be just fine when the rain comes." That graveyard was about the loneli- est place you could imagine. If I were to say it was going back to nature, you ::s '":1< 3t ::: . :( :m J :: ::;:::k:;::;; ::.}. ;:: "::::::::.:::: :::::: :.::_:. ""-:-:.0>:-'-."."... <' ': ,....w......". .:;:. ::'-". . .;.: ':: : . : '::....:-= ::; ':: :::::::'.:: '};::?::. ....,. .:......:.-..-=::: ::;:::::::r .;:3:::..:: :::.. -:. ; .:., .:.: ;:. ";:;':'-:-:;:: ' (fu CijUuN'- '1'm taking a wine course but not for credit. " might get the idea that there was some sort of vitality about the place. But it was parched and sunstricken. It was hard to imagine the grass had ever been green. Everywhere you stepped little grasshop- pers would fly up by the score, making that snap they do, like striking a match. My father put his hands in his pockets and looked around and shook his head. Then he started cutting the brush back with a hand scythe he had brought, and we set up the markers that had fallen over-most of the graves were just out- lined with stones, with no names or dates or anything on them at all. My fa- ther said to be careful where I stepped. There were small graves here and there that I hadn't noticed at first, or I hadn't quite realized what they were. I certainly didn't want to walk on them, but until he cut the weeds down I couldn't tell where they were, and then I knew I had stepped on some of them, and I felt sick. Only in childhood have I felt guilt like that, and pi I still dream about it. My father always said when someone dies the body is just a suit of old clothes the spirit doesn't want anymore. But there we were, half killing ourselves to find a grave, and as cautious as we could be about where we put our feet. We worked a good while at putting things to rights. It was hot, and there was such a sound of grasshoppers, and of wind rattling that dry grass. Then we scattered seeds around, bee balm and coneflower and sunflower and bachelor's buttons and sweet pea. They were seeds we always saved out of our own garden. When we finished, my father sat down on the ground beside his father's grave. He stayed there for a good while, pluck- ing at little whiskers of straw that still re- mained on it, fanning himself with his hat. I think he regretted that there was nothing more for him to do. Finally he got up and brushed himself off and we stood there together with our miserable clothes all damp and our hands all dirty from the work, and the first crickets rasping and the flies really beginning to bother and the birds crying out the way they do when they're about ready to set- tle for the night, and my father bowed his head and began to pra)', remember- ing his father to the Lord. I missed my grandfather mightil)', and I felt the need of pardon, too. But that was a very long prayer.